Tilting at Windmills

Peters, Charles

Tilting at Windmills By Charles Peters The Nazi's Retirement Plan Big Wheel Mammas Gandhii Sweet Tooth The BellAtlantic Hernia Pearl Harbor 11 I DON’T OFTEN PRAISE REPUBLIcan legislators. But...

...Other foundations, wealthy individuals, and the federal government should follow MacArthur’s lead...
...A recent example is the Army’s failure to give a combat brigade to Colonel Douglas Macgregor, which could keep him from making general...
...Astonishingly, the course I found most stimulating of all was Contracts...
...I did not have to meet the challenge of overcoming the addiction while the pain persisted...
...After all, a Chevrolet Suburban weighs up to 6,750 pounds, compared to 3,326 for a Ford Taurus...
...The longer they take to deliver the mail, the more they get paid...
...I realized that its fundamental principle-honoring the reasonable expectations we have aroused in others-was fundamental to making society work...
...So long as the pain is greater than the cost of killing it, people will use heroin...
...After reading her letter I still believe what I said...
...My problem, probably a d tof h aving grown up in the Nazi era, is with Germans...
...Maybe a few lunatics who want to increase their chances of being exposed to ebola...
...Many of our deepest feelings about fair play are embedded in the English common law of contracts...
...I thought Pearl Harbor was supposed to have taught the admirals that this kind of thing is not a very good idea...
...This year he’s working on the staff of a senator...
...Now I see in the news that this year the federal government is giving Harvard $230 million above the assistance provided by student loans and Pel1 grants...
...SPEAKINGO F JOHN Wayne, is that who all the nice ladies are identifylng with when they wheel into the neighborhood shopping center in one-of those big sport utility vehicles...
...Tilting at Windmills By Charles Peters The Nazi's Retirement Plan Big Wheel Mammas Gandhii Sweet Tooth The BellAtlantic Hernia Pearl Harbor 11 I DON’T OFTEN PRAISE REPUBLIcan legislators...
...My reason for mentioning this is not merely to reminisce (although of course I love to do that), but to raise a problem with the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese...
...The latest evidence comes from a Department of Transportation study, which found that where US Airways dominates short trips such as the one from Washington to Pittsburgh and Washington to Charlotte, the result is one-way fares of $240 and $227...
...Their income has dropped 7 percent...
...Shouldn’t we pay the city carriers the same way we pay the rural ones...
...When one of them crashes into your regular car, your chances of being killed are four times higher than the other guy’s...
...Maybe the military is becoming less macho while the rest of society is becoming more so...
...The next day she was eating everything on the table...
...Residential phone numbers are in one book, which isn’t all that fat thanks to Marion Barry’s totally incompetent governance, which has left only halfa million people living in the city...
...Among the early signals of violent behavior it identifies: “Moral righteousness and believing the organization is not following its rules and procedures...
...Madame,” Gandhi replied, “Last week I chewed sugar cane...
...My question is, can it be an obstruction of justice to cover up a noncrime...
...The physical pain that had gotten me on morphine in the first place had disappeared by the time I kicked the habit...
...Even clerks seem to have to attend conferences which are usually held in Honolulu or San Juan...
...It gives outstanding performance greater weight than seniority in protecting civil servants from downsizing...
...In that era, he and his friend Henry Fonda provided two of the few role models for natural behavior...
...A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH DISTRIButed by the Associated Press is one that I hope was not seen by any bright terrorist...
...The MacArthur Foundation has just announced a grant of $750,000 each to six small liberal arts colleges that are under-endowed but distinguished for their innovative approach to liberal education...
...News 6 World Report that “for a good 40 years, the US...
...It appears he was steering state contracts to GOP contributors...
...The reason for this is that Bell Atlantic is trying to force you to use its yellow pages rather than those a competitor dared to published...
...If a crowd is getting out of hand, why have to face a choice of killing them or letting the riot roll...
...One example is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention...
...Does anyone really want to abolish it...
...THEIN COME, IN CONSTANT DOLlars, of the richest five percent of Americans has risen S4 percent in the last 20 years, but that of the bottom 20 percent has only increased 1.5 percent...
...Don’t make waves...
...Why not have a humane but effective alternative...
...What is Hawkins doing for the senator...
...Ask anyone connected with the Reinventing Government task force if Al ever breathed a word about makq sure the incompetent get dismissed and the good guys are retained...
...The problem is that state governments are no better, and usually worse, than the federal government...
...That’s why I’m so grateful to the late James Stewart...
...LARGEO RGANIZATIONS TEND TO reject the unusual person, period...
...This country needs strong unions that will fight for people like the farm workers who are being denied a fair share of the profits they help create...
...WHENI WENT TO LAW SCHOOL I expected to be fascinated by courses like Criminal Law and bored by Contracts and Trusts and Estates...
...They have no incentive to be efficient...
...In mock battles, he won so often and handled his battalion ‘(so adroitly” according to Richard J. Newman of U.S...
...Even when facing enemy soldiers, sometimes the legitimate military objective can be attained by stunning the opponent instead of killing him...
...City carriers are paid for the time it takes them to complete each day’s work...
...Now we learn from Vincent S. Morris of The Washington Times that the Mayor has, instead of the 75 he has admitted, 142 employees working in his personal office...
...Certainly one or more of these fellows would be useful at the FAA regional center in New York where the errors made by air &c controllers have risen 26 percent in the last year, a situation that seems very much in need of a stiff neck who will insist, “this won’t do...
...Newsweek reports that blacks resist going to psychiatrists for the same reason...
...Barlow’s sin is that he protested to his superiors that Congress was being lied to about Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities...
...She was puzzled but did as he asked...
...IF YOU GREW UP IN THE ’30s AND ’40s as I did, you were in danger of thinlung you were a failure unless you were a Clark Gable or a John Wayne...
...What he meant was that energetic Hong Kong Chinese businessmen could count on having their contracts with strangers enforced by British law...
...The rural carrier is paid based on the amount of mail he delivers...
...But she made a point that helps explain why even though addiction can be reduced, it will be very difficult if not impossible to eliminate...
...Edward Gargan of The New York Times recently wrote about what he called “Beijing’s cavalier attitude toward contractucontractual agreements...
...The innovator can be as unpopular as the whistle-blower...
...In the Gulf War he directed 10 U.S...
...Sister Joel Read, the president of Alverno College, one of the MacArthur recipients, says, “This place prides itself on teaching...
...The conservatives are willing to concede a little bit might be necessary but they believe in turning it over to the states...
...News 6 World Report, ‘(that observers thought he had cheated...
...Farm workers are even worse off...
...Clinton, I have little doubt that she has been less than candid about her sins...
...Al Gore has been gutless on this issue...
...When I first visited Hong Kong, like practically everyone else I was struck by how well it was working economically...
...At least one donor seems aware other worthy educational institutions may be more deserving...
...Among the blacks a major reason was that they didn’t feel they could ask for help...
...HALEY BARBOUR’S I-DON’Trecalls are no more persuasive than Hillary Clinton’s...
...Business phone numbers are in a totally different book where they are combined with yellow pages in a volume that is bigyou need a fork lift to pick it up...
...Trust between strangers was not, he said...
...I’m indebted for these facts to a carrier named Jared Scarborough of Payson, Ill., who also asks that readers please remember what for him is the most essential corollary to the golden rule: when a carrier is expected, Keep The Dog Indoors CONSERVATIVANEDS LIBERTARIans who rail against government should be reminded of the government we surely need...
...That doesn’t sound dumb to me...
...Hmmm...
...His lobbying work has been taken over by his wife...
...So you can imagine how I reacted to the recent news that the Germans are still making wartime disability payments to former members of the SS, which had been declared, if anyone had any doubt, a criminal organization by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal...
...Instead of applying like a herd of sheep to only Ivy League schools, they should show how smart they are by searching out the less well-known colleges that offer an education that is as good or better than that produced by the Ivies...
...I have always been proud of the fact that, with the help of a wonderful Army nurse named Bonnie, I overcame an incipient addiction to morphine...
...On down the bureaucratic line, Wisconsin school administrators have been discovered taking sham retirements...
...For example, my solution to the Jewish homeland question was to evict not Arabs, but the people who cheered Adolf Hitler, giving the Jews the loveliest part of Bavaria and packing the Germans off to places like Dusseldorf and other dreary areas of the former Third Reich...
...THEF EDERAALV IATIONA DMINistration has a handout entitled, “Ensuring Your Personal SafetyViolence in the Workplace...
...military has quietly been pursuing weapons of this sort...
...Don’t stick your neck out...
...DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE DIFference between rural and city mail carriers...
...His reward was that he got fired...
...I WANT TO THROTTLE THE BELL Atlantic executives responsible for this year’s District of Columbia phone directories...
...An example of what I mean occurred several years ago when one of our employees was going through a bout of anorexia and I was trying to talk her into eating...
...A woman brought her son to see Gandhi and asked the great man to tell the boy to quit chewing the sugar cane that was rotting his teeth...
...We’ve recently written about the Mayor’s absurd security detail...
...AMARYLANDW OMAN H A S WRITten challenging my assertion in the last issue that if enough money were spent on drug treatment, drug addiction could be dramatically reduced...
...I was bored by Trusts and Estates and not as fascinated by Criminal Law as I had expected...
...Whatever the motivation, the growing popularity of these monsters is something for the rest of us to worry about...
...a strong characteristic of traditional Chinese culture Nor does it seem to be highly valued by the present Chinese government...
...The most recent illustrations are the CIA...
...LAST YEAR, JAMES W. Hawkins represented companies that make medical devices on whose behalf he lobbied on issues involving the Food and Drug Administration...
...Gandhi thought a minute and then asked her to bring her son back next week...
...If a friend does not answer his home phone and you want to call his office, you have to reach for the yellow pages and risk a hernia...
...But then again, the affluent do need somethmg to do with all that money they’re going to save on capital gains and estate taxes...
...The libertarians hate to admit any government is needed...
...WHENEVEI RCO NDEMN OTHERS for bigotry, in the back of my mind there’s a nagging awareness that I’m not a total innocent myself...
...She told of a study conducted at the University of California of why able students were failing...
...So should high school seniors...
...But a bill that House Civil Service Subcommittee Chairman John L. Mica is planning to sponsor this fall deserves your support...
...Speaking of Mrs...
...Orlando to Washington is $130 for the same reason...
...AS WE HAVE OFTEN POINTED OUT, the deregulation of airline fares has not been a blessing for people on routes dominated by one airline...
...SPEAKING OF ADDICTION, A letter written to The Washington Times from Jeffrey M. Edmondson tells a story about Mahatma Gandhi that I’d never heard...
...CAN THE NETWORKS afford to make the free time available to political candidates ;hat many of us feel will be essential to overall campaign finance reform...
...These are the great bureaucratic commandments...
...On the other hand, you can go all the way to Tampa from Washington for only $138 because there is competition between United and USAir...
...Can Harvard say as much...
...Michael had found the word that registered...
...After the boy agreed to give it up, the woman thanked Gandhi but asked him, “Why could you not do this last week when I first brought him...
...Seriously, non-lethal weapons are important in a world where humanitarian and peacekeeping activities are likely to provide most of the work for the American military...
...It showed five nuclear aircraft carriers-USS George Washington, USS John C. Stennis, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, USS Theodore Roosevelt, and USS Enterprise-all tied up next to one another in Norfolk, Virginia...
...But this woman’s letter reminds me of an important fact...
...What troubles me about this is that it precisely describes the kind of whistle-blower who is essential to the health of any organization...
...IF YOU’VE BEEN AROUND AS LONG aS I have and work with young people as much as I do, you are going to be asked for advice...
...But large bureaucratic organizations, whether public or private, have a natural antipathy for-or an almost automatic immune rejection of-the whistle-blower...
...When she returned with the boy a week later, Gandhi proceeded to explain the evils of chewing sugar...
...But we don’t need unions that defend feather bedding, protect incompetent workers, or demand wage hikes that are not justified by increased productivity as too many unions did during the stagflation of the ’70s...
...1 HAVE COMPLAINED ABOUT THE rich donors who give their millions to Harvard, the school that, with its $8.8 billion endowment, needs help the least...
...They retire, start collecting their pensions, then they get rehired as “contractors” and continue to collect their pensions...
...The more efficient he is, the sooner he can head home...
...tanks and 13 Bradley fighting vehicles in a battle that destroyed nearly 70 Iraqi armored vehicles at no loss to the U.S...
...Richard M. Barlow and the State Department’s Richard Nuccio...
...In just one state, Wisconsin, we find stories of the governor’s top aide being slipped $151,500 on the side by the Republican National Committee...
...OUR NOMINATION FOR THE STORY least likely to advance the reporter’s career at his paper: The article by Michael M. Phillips in the May 22 issue of The Wall Street~oumale ntitled “Tax on Wealthy is Boosting U.S...
...What you hear is a long silence...
...Hillary Clinton discussed this possibility in a graduation speech this spring at Washington’s Banneker High- School...
...Go along, get along...
...If you check you may find this racket being practiced in your city and state...
...One racket that you’re almost certain to find is the travel con...
...If you weren’t the two-fisted macho type, and I definitely was not, you could really make a fool of yourself by pretending to be a tough guy in order to impress the girls...
...Then one day I told her “I ran into mke Kinsley on the street and he said you look scrawnyl’ That did it...
...They gave you hope that you might win the girl even if you couldn’t win the fight...
...And when you give it, you want it to be helpful...
...Just something to remember the next time some conservative tells you about the blessings of deregularization...
...Drafting what The Washington Pods John Schwartz describes as a “broad piece of legislation that would change many ways in which the Food and Drug Administration operates...
...According to Newman, Macgregor believes that the Army’s division of 18,000 soldiers is “too cumbersome” with “too many layers of command for modern warfare and should be broken down into agile combat groups a third the size...
...Do they feel they can’t show weakness...
...Time and again I would try and fail to get through to her...
...But I also have little doubt that her sins did not amount to crimes...
...Revenue" 1 HAVE LONG CONSIDERED THE campaign for non-lethal weapons to be the most quixotic of my causes, but now I learn from Douglas Pasternak of US...
...As for Ken Starr's case against Hillary Clinton, my question is, can it be an obstruction of justice to cover up a noncrime...
...Do BLACK AMERICANS HAVE A problem similar to mine with Clark Gable...
...Let me cite some recent headlines: “Corporate Gifts Help Gain Access to US...
...Barlow was right...
...Governors,” “Education journal calls states’ efforts nothing to brag on,” and “States, Too, Are Plagued by Money’s Power in Politics...
...Heroin addiction offers escape from pain, either physical or mental, she explains...
...An old hand explained that the secret was Chinese industriousness combined with English law...
...So often it turns out to be a matter of finding the right word or combination of words so that what you say will really register...
...Washington’s mayor, who is admittedly worse than most but who, with the exception of his cocaine conviction, is still typical of other state and local officials, in the nature, if not the extent of his official sins, found it necessary this year, even while his city was falling apart, to take trips to Asia and Africa...
...Furthermore, they are gasoline guzzlers that, in the words of Sierra Club researcher Daniel F. Becker, “create more pollution and increase our addiction to OPEC oil!’ The latest bad news is that Mercedes is now producing these things-so the buyer will not only be able to show that he or she is big, tough, and ready to tangle but also that he or she has the wealth to buy the best...
...According to FCC chairman Reed Hundt, all they have to do is give up the spots they devote to self-promotion...
...Agan I bet your governor and maybe your mayor, while they may not have as many, will still have far more personal staff than the receptionist and the handful of secretaries and administrative assistants common sense suggests is all they really need...
...Nuccio had his security clearance blocked because he had told Congress the truth about the CIA’S involvement with the murderers in the Guatemalan military...
...The time devoted to these “watch Seinfeld tomorrow night” spots has tripled in the last three years according to Hundt...
...The German government explains that the question of responsibility for war crimes “should be kept separate from the welfare questions” Ofcourse...
...The trouble with so many of the anti-governmentites is that they love to talk the talk without thinking the think...

Vol. 29 • September 1997 • No. 9


 
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